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Problem Adding Custom Autogen Trees

Messages
149
Country
newzealand
Hi There,

for the past three days I have been trying to add some custom autogen trees using the Autogen SDK. I've gone through the tutorial steps as mentioned in this Autogen Doc:

https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc526979.aspx

Adding custom Library Objects by editing the "Default.XML" as mentioned in the document
Editing the Default.XML File works fine.


However I am having no luck with the next Tutorial.
Editing the AutogenDescriptions.XML File

I went through the steps many times, as mentioned in the tutorial, but I cant get any of my custom trees to appear in the sim. Does anyone have any idea or some pointers what I am doing wrong. Is there something the tutorial forgot to mention?

I saw that there are also some tools in the SDK like AC3Scan which apparently helps to trouble shoot any problems. I am not a programmer so I am not familiar with command line driven tools. Can anyone tell me how to run this tool to maybe check what I am doing wrong.

Thanx in advance!
 
Messages
1,095
I would recommend Arno's AutogenConfigurationMerger, it is a very solid and useful tool. Using ACM, I use this method:

Start with a minimal AutogenDescriptions.XML file:

Code:
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>

<SimBase.Document
        Type="AceXML"
        version="1,0"
        id="AutogenXMLMappings">
    <Descr>AceXML Document</Descr>
    <Filename>AutogenDescriptions.xml</Filename>


        <Autogen.SeasonalModels>
        </Autogen.SeasonalModels>


<Autogen.AutogenGroupings>  
      
</Autogen.AutogenGroupings>
    <Autogen.ExternalDependencies>
    </Autogen.ExternalDependencies>
</SimBase.Document>

Place this file into a folder called 'Autogen' at the same level as your custom scenery's scenery and texture folders. Load it into AutogenConfigEditor, add your autogen as per the tutorial you linked to, then save the XML file. Then install AutogenConfigurationMerger and it will merge your autogen with the AutogenDescriptions.SBP. All done.
 

arno

Administrator
Staff member
FSDevConf team
Resource contributor
Messages
32,859
Country
netherlands
Also make sure that your custom tree models have drawcall batching enabled, else the objects won't work as autogen.
 
Messages
149
Country
newzealand
okay, I tried your suggestions and everything worked fine. The problem was what Arno mentioned about the model not having "drawcall batching enabled".

Since I use GMAX it took me a while to figure out how to enable this, and found out that it is easily done using ModelConverterX. In ModelConverterX go to "Options" then to "Export Settings" and at the bottom look for where it says "DrawcallBatching" and change it's value to "true". Now when you import a .MDL file and export it again, it will have the "drawcall batching enabled".

Thanx Guys for the help!
 
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